School bans homework for two years

A German school has decided to ban homework as a means to help kids feel less stressed over their schoolwork. The initiative will run as a test and then be evaluated at the end of two years.

Kids in one German school should have more time in the near future as their school's administration is banishing homework from the curriculum.

According to a report published by The Local, kids at the Elsa-Brändström high school in grades five through nine won't be receiving any more homework.

Germany's high school system recently had a revamp where the school day is extended and a year was cut out of high school, reported The Local. However, that has resulted in longer school days; purportedly, some children have classes until 6 p.m.

Teachers are saying kids will have more time to do work during their classes instead of bringing it home at night. The no-homework policy will be tested for the next two years and then reevaluated to see if banning homework is effective in helping kids learn.

Head teacher Brigitte Fontein had told German publication Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, that under the program “no child would be having their free time dominated by doing school work”.

Older students, however, won't get the homework break since they have to take exams and are said to need the added work in order to perform on the tests.

Recently, a similar initiative was announced in France, but with a different reasoning. Digital Journal reported last month French President Francois Hollande feels that children from unbroken homes have an advantage over those who come from broken homes. Hollande argued that children from broken homes cannot get help from their parents as much as other students.

“Education is priority. An education programme is, by definition, a societal programme,” Hollande had said in October. “Work should be done at school, rather than at home."

Additionally, there are some schools here in the U.S. that build homework time into the school day or have scaled back on homework assigned.

What do you think? Is homework beneficial to students, or should it be abolished?